The Tigers have good news in the form of on-field action next month and in July as they have received positive feedbacks from both Zimbabwe Cricket and Cricket Ireland.
They go into the training camp from May 16 to prepare for what looks like a tri-series against Zimbabwe and South Africa that starts in Harare on June 24. At the end
of July, Bangladesh are set to travel to Ireland and Scotland after Cricket Ireland secured some funding from the ICC’s High Performance Program as well as ICC Europe.
Both tours are like a blessing to Mushfiqur Rahim’s men who were staring at a lot of down-time ahead of September’s T20 World Cup in Sri Lanka.
“The Bangladesh Cricket Board requested that the Tigers join us in the World Cup warm up matches that we will have with South Africa,” ZC managing director Ozias Bvute
told Zimbabwe Independent on Thursday.
“We wrote to South Africa who have since indicated that they have no problem with it being a triangular series. We are currently discussing the modalities with both
nations. It should be noted, however, that these are not official matches but practice matches that we are all using to prepare for the World Cup,” he added.
On the same day, BCB also received the full itinerary from Cricket Ireland. It includes five ODIs of which three would be against Ireland and then an ODI each against
Scotland and the Netherlands. The ten-day trip of Ireland would also include a single warm-up game ahead of the three matches, from where they would go to Scotland for
four days on July 30 or 31, to play the remaining two games of the tour.
Warren Deutrom, the CEO of Cricket Ireland, said that the funding from the two sources would help them quite a lot, while the rest of the money would have to come from
within.
“That [funding] will support the three host countries,” Deutrom said. “The rest will have to be made up obviously from our own resources. We are just waiting for the
green light from the BCB board now.”
The BCB has welcomed both invitations, and are looking for a final approval from the directors.
“Yes, we have put forward these requests and as far as we are concerned, we have received positive feedback from both boards. We are awaiting an approval from our
board right now,” said BCB cricket operations manager Sabbir Khan.
Originally Cricket Ireland had wanted their national cricketers to play a four-day game against Bangladesh as well but that was not possible because there was not
enough funding for it.
However, they were not going to turn down an offer to play cricket against a Test nation, whatever the format.
“Our budgets were sorted prior to the BCB’s announcement that they wanted to tour here,” Deutrom said “Of course, [the offer] is very welcome. It is precisely what the
top associates are crying out for and so it was something we could not turn down.”
-With The Daily Star input
